Consult your calendar

1. Consult your calendar Warm up this week: Grammar Bytes

2. “The Veldt” By: Ray Bradbury Materials: story, active reading guide, piece of paper, writing utensil

3. Let’s SALSA • Show actions that facilitate learning for the self and others. • Actively participate and be cognitively present • Learn to be open to new learning • Set cell phone to OFF and Send it to your backpack/purse • Act with a positive attitude and Accept that failure is not an option!

4. Standards • ELACC11-12R11: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. • R12: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. • R13: Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.

5. Questions to answer • Role models: who do children look up to while growing up? • What are characteristics of a good role model? • Why are there rules children must follow that adults don’t have to? Give some examples. • What happens when these rules are not made clear or not enforced? • What about if there were no rules to follow or chores to do? Would we be better off or would we feel somewhat lost?

7. Vocabulary • Veldt: elevated open grassland in southern Africa • Pelts: The skin of an animal with the fur or hair still on it • Appalled: To fill with consternation or dismay • Bemused: Puzzle, confuse, or bewilder • Emanations: Something that issues or originates from a source • Joviality: Marked by hearty conviviality and good cheer • Intersperse: Scatter among or between other things

8. Rima reference • Rima: the Jungle Girl, is the fictional heroine of W. H. Hudson's 1904 novel Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest

9. Alienation theme Remember that alienation occurs when one feels cut off or estranged from what used to be comfortable and familiar. A sense of isolation and uneasiness takes over. .

10. Stephen Colbert reads • http://americanchildhoods.com/2011/11/07/stephen-colbert-reads-the-veldt/

11. Theme Who feels alienated in this story? Why?

12. Think & Write Creatively Imagine that you had a “Happy-life Home” installed. Describe what you would have automatically done for you. OR Describe the fantasy land which your room would transform into.

13. Language: Simile • When Wendy and Peter return home Bradbury describes them as having “cheeks like peppermint candy, eyes like bright blue agate marbles.” • The simile serves to emphasize the fact that these are two cute, energetic children who might be found in any typical middle-American family. • Record two more examples of similes and explain their purpose.

14. Language: Personification • Bradbury personifies the nursery and the house itself by attributing emotions to these inanimate objects, “I don’t imagine the room will like being turned off,” said the father. • By turning the house into a living, breathing entity through personification, Bradbury heightens the tension and the threat. Now the parents are not only fighting their children, they are also pitted against a technological monster that is working to destroy them. • Record two more examples of personification and explain the purpose of each

15. Language: Foreshadowing • In spite of the foreshadowing, many do not see where the story is going. • Let’s go back through the story looking for hints on how it might end. • For example: What did it mean that the wallet was in the veldt, bloodied and chewed? • Continue and record one more example of foreshadowing.

16. Theme: Revenge • Children often feel powerless against adults and create elaborate fantasies in which they have the power to conquer any adult who refuses to give them what they want. • George triggers these fantasies in Peter and Wendy when he forbids them to take the rocket to New York. • The children are used to getting their own way, and they have become very angry when they cannot have what they want. Thus the cycle of revenge is set in motion

17. Write your thoughts on revenge: • Why do people want to get revenge on others? • Is this a healthy way to think? Why or why not? • What are the possible consequences of taking revenge? • Describe a time when you have taken revenge on someone.

18. Active reading: Revenge • Describe an example of revenge from the story • Include a quote • Explain what lesson can be learned from this situation

19. Theme: Illusion vs Reality • George ultimately agrees to turn on the nurseyry one more time, thus putting himself and his wife in jeopardy, because he believes that there is a definite distinction between the two. • Something that is an illusion can never become truly “real.” This is why George believes that the lions pose no real threat. They are only part of a machine that creates wonderful illusions. • “Walls, Lydia, remember; crystal walls, that’s all they are. Oh, they look real, I must admit- Africa in your parlor”

20. Write your thoughts on Illusion vs Reality • Do you believe that there is a definite distinction between illusion and reality? • Can you think of an example of an ‘illusion’ in our world that people may see as harmless but can have an effect on people’s behavior? • Describe the positive and negative effects it can have.

21. Active reading: Illusion vs Reality • Describe an example of this theme from the story • Include a quote • Explain what can be learned from this situation

22. You try: Alienation • Describe an example of this theme from the story • Include a quote • Explain what can be learned from this situation

23. Turn the question around • How can stories tell us something about our lives? • Just because a piece of writing is labeled “fiction,” does that mean there are no truths in it?

24. Predicting with personal experiences: • What happens when you feel ignored and/or don’t have enough to do? • Is the tendency to react with negative emotions or positive ones? • How do the answers to these questions help us to understand the story?

25. Critical Analysis Assignment